Shooting Star
by Nyx's Fist
Summary: In a different world a star burned across the sky, they made a wish, and she is the answer.
1. Chapter 1

***I Do not own the characters or plot of Halo or Kantai Collection**

February 10th, 2535, 0400 Hours MST

The Punic-Class Supercarrier _UNSC Wish Upon A Star_ had just arrived in the Lambda Serpentis system along with its escorts, or at least what was left of them, two Paris-Class Heavy Frigates, one Halberd Destroyer, and two Halcyon Light Cruisers.

As the small damaged battle group limped home to the Jericho VII dry docks they attempted to hail FLEETCOM on the planet, the Admiral opened the comms.

"This is Read Admiral Stackhouse speaking we require immediate repairs and refit. The Covenant is coming, I repeat the Covenant is preparing to attack the Lambda Serpentis system."

"This is Captain De Blanc of the UNSC Resolute, we hear you, I will spread this to all forces on the planet and initiate evacuation procedures, the rest of the defense fleet will be put on guard duties, we have to buy the civilians as much time as possible."

After the brief, but tense exchange of information the two ships disconnected and went about to prepare for the upcoming battle.

"Comms tell the escorts to form up on us, we're going to rearm and refit as much as we can before they get here." The Admiral ordered.

"Yes, sir but really shouldn't the covies have gotten here first? I mean they have always been faster in slipspace than us." The comms officer replied.

Pondering this for a moment the Admiral replied with. "We gave them a hell of a beating, they probably wanted to regroup before following us, nonetheless, we should still send recon probes to the edge of the system to alert us when they do arrive."

"Yes, sir." The bridge crew replied.

"The Captain has the bridge." Said the Admiral leaving to inspect the ship and the damage it had weathered in the previous battle, this wasn't realy necessary but the Admiral liked to have his men see that he was in the thick of it, just like them.

"Come on, just one more fight and then I have a feeling we'll get a nice long break afterwards, all of us, no war, no Covenant, nothing, just a nice long nap." The Admiral whispered softly, more to himself than anything, but he could have swore he heard the ship groan in an almost sad way. He had been serving on this ship for over a decade and it felt more alive to him now more than ever, this ship embodied the fighting spirit of humanity and their will to not go gentle into that good night.

As he was walking down the hall to the transport terminal to head to the engine bay, he passed the ship plaque, he stopped to read it for what must have been the thousandth time.

Punic-Class Supercarrier _UNSC Wish Upon the Stars_

Laid Down: December 10th 2521

Completed: November 19th 2524

Launched: January 21st 2525

 _Usque Ad Finem_

After taking a moment to reminisce over the send off ceremony that felt like it was centuries ago but in reality was just over a decade ago he continued on to the tram station. He entered the one that would take him to the engine room and then sat down on one of the many benches. In the car with him was a pair of Longsword pilots who held the familiar thousand yard stare. The Admiral himself had held that stare from time to time after particularly devastating battles.

"Pilots how are the Longsword squadrons holding up?" The admiral questioned, steeling himself for bad news.

"S-sir they are reporting at seventy-five percent strength, but we will require significant resupply to continue fighting a this capacity." One of the pilots responded

The Admiral pondered this for a moment, that didn't explain their moods, the Air force was particularly cynical when it came to casualties and it would take more than twenty-five percent losses to do this to his veteran crew.

"Is there anything else I need to be informed of?" The Admiral asked trying not to push his men.

"Uh n- actually yes there is something sir, when we were fighting, the Covenant, they attempted to hail our fighter, oh yeah, this is my navigator," He said gesturing to the man next to him. "Anyways they hailed us and forced they're way onto our view screen, and sir they had some sort of Forerunner artifact and they wanted to try and capture some of our pilots to activate it and the squadron lead ordered us to not let that happen _by_ _any means necessary_." The pilot finished.

The Admiral let this information sink in, and then he realized what he meant when he said "any means necessary", they were forced to shoot their own comrades disabled Longswords if they were boarded. This was most definitely the reason of their stares and general down mood.

"All we can do now is continue to fight for them and for everyone else we've lost, but most importantly, what we should be fighting for, is those we still have so that they do not suffer a similar fate." The Admiral said, then he heard the tram buzz to signal that they had made it to the engine room, he bid the pilots farewell and moved to speak with the head engineer. The only thought in his mind at the time was, this is going to be a long day.

The only thing that _Wish Upon a Star_ could feel was a blinding, burning pain all over her hull. She could already tell what was wrong with her as reports began to make their way to her bridge and were filled by the crew. As she focused on the reports the pain began to fade.

 _Port Mini-MAC: damaged beyond firing potential_

 _Starboard Mini MAC: ammunition empty but still operable_

 _Main Super MACs: ammunition empty but still operable_

 _Archer Missiles: 65 pods destroyed, 34 pod doors obstructed, 12% ammunition remaining_

 _50mm Point Defense Guns: 59 inoperable, 7% ammunition_

 _600mm Deck Guns: 7 inoperable, ammunition empty_

All in all it wasn't an awful situation, just restock ammo and repair the Port Mini MAC and she would be combat ready once more, ready to take the fight back to those covie fucks, she world rain hellfire down upon their worlds as they had done to hers.

She could feel her repair crews moving around, patching up holes in the hull and attempting to repair the deck guns and the mini MAC. She was still limping towards the dry docks, estimates put arrival in 15 minutes, then she could have a rest _,_ _didn't the Admiral mention something about rest? That this might be her last battle before a nice, long nap?_ The true meaning was not lost on her, and she thought that if she was to go down protecting a human colony, then there's worse ways to go, and she was ready, she had been fighting for so long and a break sounded nice.

 _So guys that's the first chapter hoping to get more done soon, just for reference and since there's not much concrete info on the Punic I'm going to put some stats down here to give a better visualization._

 _Length: 4250 meters_

 _Width: 250 meters_

 _Height: 750 Meters_

 _10 meters of titanium-A armor_

 _2 Forward facing Super MACs 60% of the power of an ODP_

 _1 Mini MAC on each side of the ship_

 _24 600mm Deck Guns_

 _270 PDGs_

 _1000 Oversized Archer Missile Pods_


	2. Chapter 2

***I Do not own the characters or plot of Halo or Kantai Collection**

 _February 10th, 2535, 0900 Hours MST_

In the hours since arriving in the Lambda Serpentis system, the battle group had been fully rearmed and repaired for the most part. The _Wish Upon the Stars_ Mini MAC had been repaired, and so had most of the PDGs, the technicians had managed to unblock all the Archer pods and got all deck guns back up and running. For all intents and purposes, she was ready for another fight.

The fleet was on high alert, as a matter of fact, currently the Admiral was preparing the plan with Captain De Blanc. The fleet currently had 23 ships, the Punic, 9 Paris Heavy Frigates, 4 Halberd Destroyers, 4 Charon Light Frigates, 2 Halcyon Light Cruisers, and 3 Stalwart Light Frigates. The defence fleet was actually supposed to be bigger but the rest of the fleet had been recalled for frontline duties.

In the bridge of _Wish Upon the Stars_ the Admiral was talking to his ships AI, Guderian who was paired with the Admiral for their similar battle philosiphies, a heavy attack at one point in and enemies line and allow the rest of your fast forces exploit it to its fullest.

"We could have the Paris fleet screen and run circles around the enemy never stopping and have the Destroyers prioitize CCS Battlecruisers, attach two of the Stalwarts to the to the Destroyers..." As the Admiral continued planning, the Covenant jumped into the system. Immediatly they scrambled all fighters and prepeared for combat.

The Covenant fleet outnumered the UNSC fleet 2:1 12 CCS Battlecruisers, 1 CAS Assault Carrier, 18 SDV Corrvettes, and 10 CAR Light Frigates, the Admrial knew that this world was already dead, but he needed to get as amny civillians out as possible, over the last few hours the evacuation had been moving steadily and 45% of the populace had already left, but now they had to buy time for the rest of them.

The Admiral started givivng orders as soon as he was alerted to the presence of the Covenant. "Get the destroyer group focusing on the battlecruisers and have the frigates screen for them, I want our fighters in the void yesterday. Have the Halcyons take 2 Paris Frigates, and get above the CARs try to open a gap for our fighters. Weapons have our MACs hit the CAS and then rotate us port and hit it with the mini MAC after that, have all deck guns target the energy projector."

As the crew and the fleet began to comply with his orders, the CAS used its energy projector to cleave a pair of Halberds in half and severely damage a Charon. The UNSC returned fire, taking out 2 CARs and knocking out the shields of another, the destroyers knocked out a pair of CCSs and the _Wish Upon the Stars_ managed to knockout the shields on the CAS and damage the energy projector.

The Admiral prepared his next round of orders, but was interupted by the helm informing him that the CCS battle line managed to get off a few plasma torpedos and they were heading towards the destroyers.

"Tell them to break formation and retreat to the farside of the planet, we can play the long game with them, after they pull away have the Halcyon group pull out, and at the same time have our frigate line pump a volley of missiles into the CAS." The comms officer then efficiantly relayed these orders to the rest of the fleet. Instantly they complied and began moving their way around the battlefield. For a moment the Admiral just let the battle chatter sink in.

"The frigate line is moving."

"MAC is 70 percent charged."

"Longswords are reporting that enemy seraphs are targeting the destroyers."

While all of this was happening, the _Wish Upon the Star_ was desperatly trying to fill in the gaps with as many MAC rounds and Archer missiles as they could fire. The PDGs were hammering the Covenants fighter screen, but the amount of fighters that the CAS was pouring out was simply to much for the flak screen, and eventually some Seraph bombers made it to the starboard side mini MAC and blew it to kindom come. At this point in the battle, the Halcyon group and the destroyers had managed to make it to the other side of the planet. All that remained on the line was the _Star,_ a Stalwart, and 4 Paris Frigates.

"Helm gte us behind the planet, have the stalwart cover our spot, and after we make it have the rest of the frigates move with us." The Admiral commanded.

"Aye, sir." The Helm replied, turning the ship around.

As the ship moved, the Admiral looked over what was left of the fleet and was pleasently suprised, the two Halcyons were still up, Catain De Blanc's ship was green, and 5 Paris Frigates were still operational-not counting the ships he had covering his retreat. Considering they had killed or disabled 12 of the enemy's ships it wasn't a bad ratio. As he made it around the planet, the rear guard was gutted by a wave of plasma torpedos from the battlecruisers. The Admiral readied the fleet to boost over the top and fire all guns at the CAS simultaneusly, killing the enemy's flagship would rid the of alot of firepower and supplies but, it would also remove their main leadership from the equation. As they were boosting, they enemy began deploying ground troops.

Most of the fleets ground complement was already on the ground to defend, all except the _Star_ 's as the Admiral wanted to use them as a QRF -quick reaction force- and deploy them in the weakpoints of the Covenants line. The ground forces could hold for a few days ax, there was simply to many covies, and not enough Humans. So the Admiral just hoped they could get reinforcement and beat the Covenant back. When the fleet crested the planet, they all fired at the CAS, whose shields generators must have been damaged ealier in the fight as they were still down, and completly gutted it, but there wa no time for celebration, as the Covenants answer was to simple begin moving to knife fighting range to negate the UNSC's MACs as they were moving they unleashed amassive volley of torpedos to all the ships except the _Star_. For a moment the Admiral was confused as to why, then he was suddenly very happy he had kept the ground forces on board, the enemy was moving in for boarding. He had the rest of the fleet pull back, if he was going down it was gonna be a show, and he didnt want to risk friendly fire.

Star could tell that she was in bad shape. The covies had disabled her engines and her mini MACs, but her deck guns and PDGs were still firing away. Suddenly she felt something latch onto the hangar doors and begin cutting. The sensation made her even angrier and as they made it in she felt the battle rage through all of her corridors and rooms. She felt as each one of her crew memebers perished at the hands of the vile things. She felt her engines kick on and vemn before the Admiral began broadcasting, she knew what to do.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I wish that this could have ended differently, better, but we can't change that now. It has been an honor serving with you for the past decade. We have done great things togther, we've even managed to save a few worlds, and millions of civillian, even now we are buying them time. Now its time we get some well deserved rest. Rear Admiral Stackhouse over and out." She felt the Admiral's speech reverberate in the minds of every crewman left standing, they were all ready to pay the ultimate price if it meant more time for more civilians to get out. They had all seen the glassed planets and they couldn't damn anyone to that fate if they didn't have too. So in one final act of defiance, the four kilometers of ship rammed through a CCS Battlecruiser and made it to the heart of the enemy transports and detonated all remaining onboard nukes, ending in one hell of a bang.

 _And thats the end of the halo side (for now?) and now off to shipgirl land._


End file.
